Black-bellied Whistling Ducks are fairly often kept in captivity, and they occaisionally wander away from it. When they show up as far away from their normal range as Squaw Creek N.W.R., there is likely to be speculation that they may be escaped birds. But the species also showed up in Kansas, and at Red Slough, OK at around the same time. The contemporaneous Kansas and Oklahoma sightings are evidence that the Squaw Creek birds were part of a general movement of wild birds, rather than wanderers from some private collection.
Bob Fisher
Independence, Missouri
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